[Guest Post by Deborah Isley, MA in History, Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum Volunteer]
In the decades before airplanes, Americans were regularly entertained by aeronauts, what they called hot-air balloon operators at the time. Parachute jumps from hot-air balloons were of particular interest to Seattleites in the early 1890s.
Competing aeronauts performed through the summer of 1893 in Madison and Leschi Parks on Lake Washington. They advertised parachute races, acrobatic feats from beneath the balloon, and even throwing dogs and monkeys in parachutes out of the balloons to win the most spectators. For those wondering, the poor animals survived, and yes, the humane society predictably protested, but that’s a story for another time.
One of the aeronauts went by the moniker Professor Soper. He owned two balloons and recruited young people to perform the parachute jumps. Among those poorly paid jumpers was a teenage acrobat and performer named August C. “Charlie” Anderson. On one occasion that July, Anderson narrowly escaped severe injury when the hot air balloon he was attached to ripped as it started to ascend.
Afterward, he alleged to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that Professor Soper recruited young people off the streets of Seattle and paid them only $10 per jump plus board for the dangerous work, while Professor Soper reportedly made around $300 from each stunt performed by his proteges.
Disgruntled, Charlie decided to set out on his own. Working with railroad executives, he planned a massive public excursion to Snoqualmie Falls, where he would perform a never-before-seen stunt: parachuting from the top of the falls into the canyon below. To avoid detection from his wealthy family, he advertised the stunt under his new stage name: Professor Lavonis.
On August 20, 1893, a crowd of over 1,200 lined the cliffs on either side of Snoqualmie Falls and along the rocky beach below. Over fourteen train cars full of excursionists from Seattle arrived that afternoon to watch Charlie Anderson parachute from the top of the falls. The spectators watched as the young man, who weighed a mere 100 pounds, was harnessed to ropes attached to a parachute, which was connected to a roller on a line above a canyon, allowing the parachute to be rolled back and forth along the line.
Recalling the event, Snoqualmie Valley resident Dio Reinig said, “When he was ready to start, he bade everyone goodbye. Some of his friends tried to talk him out of going, but he said he didn’t want to disappoint so many people.” So, he was rolled out to a position just fifty feet in front of the towering 268-foot-high crest of the falls. When Mr. Anderson pulled a cord, the parachute detached, and he plunged rapidly 100 feet before the parachute opened.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief for a moment. He descended another 100 feet, but he slowly drifted toward the waterfall itself. He appeared frantic as he flailed his arms and legs in a desperate attempt to keep the parachute away from the turbulent cascade. Yet, due to his small stature and the brute force of the whirlwind, he was pulled nearly horizontal before rapidly crashing into the rocks below.
Spectators, including Dio Reinig, ran to the base of the falls to see if Mr. Anderson had survived the plunge. When they arrived, two doctors were assessing him. He was alive but unconscious and gravely injured. The doctors asked Dio and his friend, Billie Gordon, to run up the stairs and stop the train from leaving the station.
It then took thirty minutes for a couple of young men to carry Anderson up the stairs to the hotel at the top. The doctors attended to their patient on the long train ride back to Seattle, where the severely injured Charlie Anderson was admitted to the hospital. Charlie never regained consciousness and died the next morning; he was barely 20 years old.
[Featured Image: Figure 1– A postcard of Snoqualmie Falls in the 1890s. Excursion trains, particularly on the summer weekends, brought tourists from Seattle and Everett to the Falls and other attractions in the Snoqualmie Valley. PO.074.0794.1 Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum.]
